La Jolla's 'Memphis' signing off on Broadway

Playhouse's Ashley talks about the closing of his Tony-winning show

This theater image released by The Hartman Group shows J. Bernard Calloway, left, and Montego Glover in a scene from the musical "Memphis." Producers said Tuesday, June 26, 2012, that the Joe DiPietro-written musical will play its last performance on Aug. 5 after 30 previews and 1,166 regular performances. It opened in October 2009. (AP Photo/The Hartman Group, Joan Marcus)
— AP

This theater image released by The Hartman Group shows J. Bernard Calloway, left, and Montego Glover in a scene from the musical "Memphis." Producers said Tuesday, June 26, 2012, that the Joe DiPietro-written musical will play its last performance on Aug. 5 after 30 previews and 1,166 regular performances. It opened in October 2009. (AP Photo/The Hartman Group, Joan Marcus)
/ AP

When Christopher Ashley notes that "Memphis" was his "inaugural" show at La Jolla Playhouse, the theater's artistic director is making a playful but heartfelt point about his experience with the musical.

"Memphis," the R&B-driven show about not just the beginnings of rock 'n' roll but the birth pangs of the civil-rights movement, went up at the Playhouse in the year of President Obama's history-making election. After its 2008 La Jolla premiere, the show (a co-production with Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre) made its way to Broadway, winning four Tony Awards in 2010, including best musical.

As it happens, "Memphis" won't last quite as long as Obama's first term. The show's producers announced late Tuesday that the Broadway production will close after two and a half years and 1,166 performances. When all's said and done, "Memphis" will sit at 83rd on the all-time list of longest-running Broadway shows, one performance ahead of the original production of "Cabaret" (the 1967 best-musical winner).

Chatting by phone Thursday morning, Ashley said the experience of directing "Memphis" and shepherding it to Broadway "is very wrapped up with the Obama administration for me," partly because first lady Michelle Obama and the couple's two daughters attended a performance in 2010, "which was a really amazing and emotional experience for everyone." The White House also invited "Memphis" cast members to perform there on several occasions as part of the administration's arts programs.

"Also, we were performing at La Jolla Playhouse during the height of that campaign, so what 'Memphis' had to say about what's changed and what hasn't about race in America kept rhyming with the current moment," Ashley says. "So I would say that for me, America having a first black president is very intertwined with the experience of doing this play for the first time."

"Memphis," first conceived by writer Joe DiPietro more than 10 years ago, was inspired in part by the real-life Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips, who pioneered the playing of African-American artists' music on white-dominated radio. The musical's fictional DJ character, Huey Calhoun, also has a romance with the black singer Felicia Farrell that sets in motion major consequences for both their lives and careers.

DiPietro teamed with composer David Bryan of the band Bon Jovi to create the show; it went through several developmental stagings before Ashley came aboard around 2005.

"Memphis," of course, is not going away completely; a touring version is now crossing the nation and will land at San Diego's Civic Theatre on July 24 as a presentation of Broadway/San Diego.

Meantime, Ashley is coming to terms with saying goodbye to the Broadway production.

"I think you used the right word - it is bittersweet," he said. "It's sad that it's closing. I'm also really grateful that it had a long, healthy run, and that it won four Tony Awards and the national tour is a big success."

But every show has to close sometime, and Ashley invokes (somewhat sheepishly) a favorite line from the Wallace Stevens poem "Sunday Morning" - "Death is the mother of beauty" - to describe the inherently fleeting nature of theater.

"I'd say one of the frustrating and amazing things about making theater is it's evanescent - it's of the moment and then it's gone," Ashley says. "The fact that it ends is part of what makes it beautiful while it's happening."